Monday, February 27, 2006

Pirate’s Cove tells about a plan to "storm the White House" The French stormed the Bastille. People, if you use rhetoric like this you should not be surprised if you get a violent reception If you meant it figuratively it would have been a good idea to say so because this can be construed as a direct threat.United for Peace and Justice is behind this nonsense.

We are calling on all citizens and governments in every country to stand with us. We are calling on all Member Nations of the U.N.; All Representatives and Justices in the World Court and International Criminal Courts; All Human Rights Advocates; All Soldiers and CIA agents and government officials who have been blackmailed or are in fear of the dictators to join us in ending this reign of corporate terror in our government.

Okayyyyyyy...I guess the fact that the President was legally elected escapes them. I also guess that nobody ever told them (or most likely they didn't understand) that just because you don't like something does not make it illegal. I guess that they also think that forcing somebody to listen to Christina Aguilara is the thing as an acid bath.

...we must storm in, show them how many of us do not accept a criminal government.

This not "peacable assembly" as protected by the Constitution. This is an act of open rebellion that can, and should be met with force necessary to quell it. If this was a protest march, I would say, "have at it" it is the right and duty of Americans to do such to redress grievences with the government. This, however, goes wayyyyyyyy beyond that.I rather like Pirate Cove's take on this, "Nutarama: now with more insanity!" I really hope this does not end with these any of clowns getting Darwin Awards. But given the tenor of the "call to arms", I'm not holding out much hope.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Job search is still plodding along, slowed by a diverticulitis attack that the doctor has ordered me to home until the 23rd. This also does not help the old hours worked column.UPDATE:Have improved enough to go back to work yesterday.UPDATE II:Still in some pain but still working even if it is pt, got a nibble on my posting on monster.com setting up interview time.Son home from college so aside form a few comments very limited blogging this week.

...and as Wayne Campbell would say, "Sh'eah right! And maybe monkeys will come flying out my butt!" In Grizzly Report: We Are At War. MonicaR relates her experience at a meeting sponsored by CAIR-Philly. According to Monica, "It pains me to say it. There was a sliver of me that wanted to believe my President when he told me that Islam is the 'Religion of Peace.' " Apparently this meeting erased even that sliver.Read about her experience here rather than take my word for it. This was not some right-wing-kook-tin-foil hat-conspiratist rally, but this was from the horses mouths. I was always tought that if you want to be trusted then don't act in ways that raise suspicion. Apparently the good folks at CAIR never got that advice. At least not at this gathering.

MiamiHerald says former White House Occupant Jimmy Carter thinks turning port security over to an UAE-owned company is a good idea. If for no other reason, President Bush should scrap the idea. Carter's brilliance at security was exemplified for 444 days in 1979 and 1980.Mr. President, run don't walk from this deal.

Monday, February 20, 2006

I used to like reading Debbie Schlussel. However, after a couple of adolescent caps-locked responses to comments I made on her blog, and other instances of childish e-mails to other bloggers I can only say, "enough". If you are going to rant about a request for sources and threaten to sue over insutling remarks contained in an angry rant, then you need to be in another line of work, take a break or maybe just take a few deep breaths and count to ten. For gosh sakes, stop biting hands that are on the same side!

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Iranian Bakeries Rename Danish Pastries according to fox news. As you remember, Iranian President Hassan binSober declared a few weeks ago that Danish would now be called "Mohammedan Pastries" At least the confectioners' uniion came up with a more poetic (if longer and clumsier)name: "Roses of the Prophet Mohammed"Excuse me while I go find a bakery.

I offer the following recent news items, in no particular order: The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is demanding an apology from a Los Angeles talk-show host for making fun of Muslims. In reference to the oft-repeated spectacle of Muslim pilgrims stampeding each other to death during Hajj (a pillar of Islam involving a pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia), KFI's Bill Handel suggested the annual Hajj should feature a "Hajj in the Sky" traffic copter.

This is a joke. It is not allowed.

On Jan. 30, Muslim gunmen stormed an office of the European Union in Gaza, in protest of a series of editorial cartoons in a Danish newspaper. The comics featured 12 artistic visions of Muhammad, including one where the prophet's turban is a bomb with a lit fuse, and another showing Muhammad in heaven telling newly arrived suicide bombers, "Stop! We have run out of virgins!" In addition to the armed assault on the European Union, Saudi Arabia recalled its Danish ambassador, Syria demanded the cartoonists be punished and Danish products were pulled from store shelves across the Middle East.

These cartoons are jokes. They are not allowed.

Just days before the gunmen were kicking in doors over cartoons, the Palestinians voted 60 percent for Hamas, a group previously identified by both the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians, including some Americans. Hamas won this election over the Fatah Party, whose armed wing ‹ the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades ‹ is responsible for hundreds of civilian deaths, including Americans. On 9/11, Palestinians watching 3,000 Americans die live on satellite TV were so overjoyed they danced in the streets and handed out candy to children.

Last year, American taxpayers gave more than $400 million to the Palestinians.

That is not a joke. It's a foreign policy.

When CAIR sent out a news release attacking KFI's Bill Handel over his "Hajj in the Sky" joke, they also complained that Handel referred to Islam as a "strange religion." And they didn't like his suggestion that Muslims had a problem with anti-Semitism.

Now, where'd he ever get that crazy idea …

"Strange religion" seems pretty mild to me. If masked Methodists were hijacking newsrooms over the latest installment of Doonesbury, I'd consider that a bit odd. If cracking jokes about Christian Scientists led their members to threaten public safety, I'd view that as somewhat out of the ordinary.

If Scientologists started getting all freaky about þ well, that's a bad example.

My point is, when you're talking about the only religion in the world currently linked to suicide bombings, honor killings, the stoning of homosexuals and a return to the electoral ideology of the Nazi Party, it's hard to avoid mildly judgmental terms like "strange," "disconcerting," and, "Holy crap, what the hell are these whack jobs thinking?"

If you can't use the words "strange" and "religion" in a conversation about Islam's influence on the world, then you can't have an honest conversation about Islam. That doesn't mean the conversation has to be negative. But the potential for negative, critical and harsh comments must exist for the conversation to be worthwhile. How can there be open, meaningful discourse with people who are ready to blow your brains out if Charlie Brown and Lucy misquote the Quran?

Don't Muslims ever kid around? Doesn't anyone in the Islamic world ever crack a joke? I mean, other than the classic, "These two Jews walk into a bar þ AND ARE BLOWN TO SMITHEREENS BY A MARTYR! ALLAH AKBAR! ALLAH AKBAR!"

Comedy is, by its very nature, critical. For there to be a joke, there must be somebody or something to joke about. Big boys and girls understand this. When people crack wise about us, we take our licks and go on.

If, for example, the Billy Graham crusades resulted in a parking lot pileup of crazed, car-crashing Christians year after year, I wouldn't be offended if radio talk hosts made fun of it. I would expect it. Then again, I also would expect the Billy Graham folks to figure out how to prevent another crash before the next crusade.

It's not talk radio's fault that Muslim pilgrims being stampeded to death while throwing stones at a symbol of Satan has become almost an annual event. It's shameful and embarrassing, and the Saudi government and others responsible should be ashamed. Instead, they're outraged that somebody noticed it and snickered.

Iran wants to play host to an international conference to determine the real facts about the Holocaust. Of course I'm going to laugh. What else ‹ take them seriously?

The insurgents in Iraq insist that American soldiers are "forcing" good Muslims to violate their faith and participate in democracy. "The Americans have no right to force us to choose our own leaders! They can't boss us around by making us be our own bosses!" What, you want me to pretend that's an argument?

No, that's a punch line.

It is impossible to look honestly at the current state of Islam in the world and not either laugh or cry. I choose to laugh. What the leaders of the Muslim world choose to do, we'll have to wait and see.

Let us know what you think: Email Suspects@aol.com or news@free-times.com.

Michelle Malkin among others are reporting the latest rage in Iran, "Mohammedan Pastries", known to the civilized world Danish Pastries. Now I thought the act of referring to french fires as freedom fries was just plain silly, as was the new name for the deep fried taters. This latest act by the circus known as the Iranian government did not, however, provoke the same laughter. All we (by "we" I am referring to a small minority of US citizens) did was (badly) rename a popular side dish, we didn't riot, pillage and go out looking for French people to murder while burning down their embassy.Of course this could be the real reason behind the idiot teacher in Ipswich, England demanding they stop calling another pastry, "hot cross buns". Soon as I get a whole job I plan on enjoying a surfeit of raspberry danish (what better choice of fruit) and hot cross buns.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

I recently lost a job that I had held for over seven years, thus far I have been unable to get anything other than part time and we are floundering. The job search and stress caused by it is part of the reason for the sporadic posting I have been doing lately. Soon as this crisis is past the button on the left will disappear unless I decide to start treating blogging as a source of income (lol). But right now,and for the foreseeable future, the "make a donation" button is temporary.

Friday, February 03, 2006

According to Michelle Malkin and the London Daily Telegraph a leading Islamic cleric is calling for an "international day of anger." My response is, "And that would distinguish it from every other day how?" Let's face it, all we hear, read and see in the news is how some Muslim somewhere is "mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore" then orders some wild-eyed sycophant to go blow himeslf up and take a few Jewish pizza-eaters with him.Alternately go kidnap somebody and saw their heads off.Many American "journalists" think this is appropriate behavior. I say this due to their willingness to acded to their demands not to show the editorial cartoons because it might upset the Muslims' deeply held spiritual beliefs. Of it never stopped them from running similar items that any reasonable person would deem a smear against conservative Christians. Perhaps because they can be fairly certain the reaction will not be extremely violent and will in some places be applauded. If you think this is a veiled accusation of cowardice on the part of our news media, it is.